Summerall, the Giants place-kicker from 1958-61, made one of the biggest kicks in team history on Dec. 14, 1958, with the snow blowing all around him.

The Giants needed to beat Cleveland in the final game of the regular season at Yankee Stadium in order to earn a first-place tie with the Browns in the Eastern Conference. A Giants victory would then force a one-game playoff between the Giants and Browns with the winner facing the Colts for the title.

Summerall lined up for a long field goal. To this day, he is still not sure exactly how far the kick was because the yard lines were obliterated by snow.

It was 10-10 with just over two minutes remaining. The Giants had a fourth down at the Cleveland 42, making it a 49-yarder (the goal posts were still on the goal line in those days). Jim Lee Howell sent Summerall onto the field. Minutes earlier, he had missed a 31-yarder.

Giants quarterback Charlie Conerly, who was also Summerall's holder, looked at him as he joined the huddle.

"What the hell are you doing here?," Conerly said. Summerall still wonders that himself. "I couldn't believe they were asking me to try it," he said.
He knew he hit it well and it had the distance, although he couldn't see the goal posts. His kick, he said, "was behaving like a knuckleball." It was good. "When I came back to the sideline, I remember (Vince) Lombardi grabbing me."

The conversation? "You son of a bitch," Lombardi, then a Giant assistant coach, said. "You know you can't kick it that far."

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